


breathing all the same

by ilietomyselfallthetime



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, a little confusing, i wrote this at 3 am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilietomyselfallthetime/pseuds/ilietomyselfallthetime
Summary: Dal has a nightmare





	breathing all the same

_ Dallas had never felt such raw emotion as he did the second he saw Pony and Johnny run into that church. It was like the world had completely stopped spinning, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t even breathe. All he could do was watch as the two of them ran to their deaths. The fire would be pretty, he thought, if it wasn’t where Pony, Johnny and those kids were. The oranges and the yellows mixed together in a hypotonic way._  
_ The fat man screamed at Pony and Johnny to get out, and that’s what finally made Dallas’ feet move. He ran towards the church, towards his family who needed him, and for a second, he felt as if he was floating, he wondered briefly if this is what Soda felt like, getting ‘high on life’. He reached Pony and Johnny and helped them clear out the last of the kids. He heard a noise, like a crunching, and looked up at the source- the roof collapsing. Dal gripped onto Pony who was in front of him and pulled him out, whacking him on the back to put out the fire.  
He turned to reach for Johnny, but just before he could grab him, a beam hit his back and the floor collapsed from under him.  
“Johnny! I’m coming!” He screamed frantic, the terror filling his body unparalleled to anything he’d ever felt.  
“Dal! Help!” Dallas’ eyes filled with tears, which he blamed on the smoke.  
“I’m coming pal! Hang in there!” He looked down the holes and saw Johnnys crumpled body, and he reached for him, desperate to feel him, to know he was alive, to know he was there. Johnny weakly reached up, and Dal almost screamed out of relief. He was alive. Dal pulled him out and gripped him close, stumbling out of the church as it collapsed behind them. He fell to the grass, still holding Johnny, and panting. The adrenaline he felt earlier was at stating to wear off and now his body hurt all over. “Johnny? Are you okay?” Dallas asked, voice barely a whisper.  
Johnny groaned, and Dal was satisfied enough with the answer. Before he could pay more attention to him, everything became black.  
The next few days were all a blur. Pony and Two-Bit came to visit, the nurses hated him, he almost fought Johnnys mom. He was living in some odd dreamlike state, only waking up and feeling clear again after the rumble, going to see Johnny.  
Dal and Pony walked in comfortable silence to Johnnys room. When they walked in, it felt like death in there. Johnny looked so small and fragile wrapped in the white hospital sheets with ivs all plugged in him. Dal’s heart began to race.  
They told Johnny all about the rumble, eager to see him smile, but instead he just frowned deeper.  
“Fighting’s no good for anybody.” He said, like it was a simple fact they learned in grade school.  
Dal thought about what else he could say. “They’re still writing about you in the paper, y’know. Calling you a hero for saving those kids. We’re all proud of you, buddy. It’s going to be alright.”  
Dally blinked, and he felt that dreamlike state slowly sink its way back into_ _his mind._  
“_Fighting’s no good.” He heard, bouncing around his skull. “Dal! Help!” Repeated again and again. “Stay gold, Ponyboy.” Johnny says but it’s no Johnny, it’s him, and it’s coming from everywhere at once, and he’s in the hospital bed with Pony and Johnny around him. And this is what he wanted, to switch places with Johnny, and it’s awful and terrifying and confusing. And they keep repeating that it’s Dally’s fault Johnny is dying instead of him and he just can’t seem to wake up, wake up wake up_

“Wake up.”  
Dal’s eyes fly open, and he’s breathing so hard he thinks he dying. Suddenly there’s a scarred hand on his and he looks over and he sees Johnny, alive and well, a little bruised and a little burnt but breathing all the same.  
Dallas sighs in relief, everything that happened last year was still fresh and still painful.  
“Hey, hey look at me.” Johnny said, gripping Dal’s face and looking into his eyes. “Breathe with me.”  
The two sat there, staring at each other and breathing until Dal calmed down.  
Dallas very suddenly thought Johnny was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. The light from the moon outside the window was highlighting his features in just the right way. There was a dark bruise around his eye, undoubtedly from his father, which was why Johnny was there, Dallas suddenly remembered.  
“Sorry for waking you up, kid.” Dal said, reaching for his pack of cigarettes on the night stand.  
“Hey, no, you’re fine. What’s wrong? What happened?”  
Dallas inhaled deeply, embracing the warmth he felt in his lungs.  
“Just a nightmare.”  
“About what?” Johnny asked.  
Dal shook his head and Johnny seemed to forget he asked.  
“So-“ Johnny began.  
“It was about you.” Dal said suddenly, and Johnny noticed that he himself looked shocked he had said anything.  
“The fire?” Dal nodded.  
“Oh.” Johnny said simply. Dal looked into his big brown eyes and searched for something, anything that was upset at the mention of last year. They didn’t talk too much about it anymore, simply wanting to forget it all, but it was hard when almost every night Dallas was reminded of it. He closed his eyes, willing the picture of Johnny burning in the church away, but he could still hear his screams. That noise would hunt him until they say he died.  
Dallas has never felt so helpless as he did when he saw Johnny in the hospital the night of the rumble. His heart had stopped that night, and Dallas had decided he’d die with him. Pony and Dal were in the hall of the hospital, shaking and holding each other when they heard it: “we got a pulse!” And Dallas wondered if some god had heard his thoughts.  
He shivered. He loved Johnny. More than Elvis, more than anyone, more than himself. Johnny was the last thing that gave Dal hope- and god knows he needed some. It was like Johnny was made of light, sometimes Dally would look at him and wonder if he was even real or just some angelic hallucination. Johnny had it the worst in the gang, with his constant beatings from both the the Socs and his own parents, you’d expect him to be toughened up, hardened. But he’s the opposite. As Dallas looks at Johnny, who is now resting his head on Dal’s chest, he wonders why he ever wanted to die when there was such pure gold in the world. He thinks about Pony’s poem, the one that doesn’t quite make sense to him. How can nothing gold stay when Johnny is right there, looking like this? Johnny defies that poem, he beats the odds. Dal couldn’t even imagine the type of life Johnny had lived. A life that should’ve beaten him down but instead left him kind and gentle. Made of light. Maybe, Dal thinks, maybe gold can stay.


End file.
